I was at a relevant music festival/conference, and I had the opportunity to experience the WAVVES live experience at a relevant party held by the relevant blog GorillaVsBear.
Photo by Guerilla Vs Bro
From what I have read on the internet, WAVVES is ‘the next big thing’ according to internet music websites. I have listened to his song about being ’s00 b0red’, but I am not sure if it appeals to me. He seems like a chill bro who plays gigs in comfortable sports wear.
[MP3]
WAVVES So Bored
Grade: 1.3 out of 10 runoffs
A lot of times, bands like this come along, and they achieve this aesthetic that is like fuzzy/garage rock/nihilist/beach-guitar-bro/post-punk/etc, or probably some more formal genre that I am not aware of. It seems to appeal to the core demographic of ‘music critics’ who are men between the ages of 28-48. This means that Generation Y is not represented by many authentic ‘tastemaking’ music information sources (and probably rightfully so).
So while I ‘get’ that this music is good for some reason, I don’t think that any one who is Generation Y or below should really ‘get into it’, but if ur an ‘older bro who likes music’, maybe u can share what makes it ‘good’/'relevant-sounding’ so that I can understand the modern musiccriticismsphere. Maybe I have ‘too many pop sensibilities’ since my parents ‘listened to a lot of ______’ while I was growing up.
Maybe I just feel more comfortable with a band like MGMT getting pseudo-’critical acclaim’ until it is ‘driven into the ground’ because of its aesthetic gimmick/poppy consumer-core sounds than I am with these bands that will be ‘forever-authentic.’ I think these people appeal to the ‘alternative post-GenXers who grew up reading Vice Magazine.’ Still trying to ‘get’ these alts since I have had to alienate them to appeal to tweens (a more valuable demographic for advertisers).
Previous band that I don’t ‘get’: No Age
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2008/05/no-age-got-a-92-on-pitchfork-but-i-still-dont-get-why-i-should-appreciate-them-2.html
Does n e understand what I am trying 2 say? Just trying to ‘make sense’ of bands that are [HIGHLY BUZZWORTHY] that aren’t instantly accessible 2 me.
Do yall give WAVVES a thumbs up or thumbs down?
Loading ...
IAmCarles.com
56 Comments
You made sense of it for me.
Reply
//////////Reply by fuck you
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
@Doinmusic, failed firsty, fuck you
Reply
//////////Reply by ryan5000
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 1:16 am
@Doinmusic, wavves is boring. wavves is bro-ing.
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 8:26 am
@ryan5000, sounds like something early 90’s Berkley that they turned the distortion up on.
Reply
//////////Reply by SilverTell
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
@anony, All Points West sends me a monthly Spin which is like a really low quality blog China prints out and puts in my mail box once a month.
Spin told me a couple months ago that Wavves would be “wicked tubular” or some other disjointed joke that fizzled like that.
I did what any altbro would do. I went to Hypemachine and listened. I did not <3 Wavves bc I didn’t want to tarnish my personal brand. I too immediately ‘got’ the intended aesthetic. It was certainly not Generation Y. I might listen to Wavves while I smoke marijuana at a summer BBQ with other bros, but probably not. I’d rather listen to iPod commercials on repeat. s0 much more relevant/dancey/fun to BBQ to.
I give Wavves a thumb down though I bet he’s a chill bro who could chill at my BBQ.
@Wavves, come to my BBQ in 2 months and we’ll listen to
Phoenix – 1901 (What Kind Of Breeze Do You Blow? A-Mix)
Passion Pit – Sleepyhead (Emil & Friends Reworking)
I’m not s0 bored.
I’m on HRO.
I’m not s0 bored.
I’m studying micro.
I’m not s0 bored.
I’m cleaning up the mess GenX left me.
I’m not s0 bored.
I elected Obammes.
I’m not s0 bored.
I’m upset abt GenX electing Bush [via Nader.]
I’m not s0 bored.
I have YouTube. Thanks Google bros
I have Infomania. Thanks Gore bros
I have Daily Show. Thanks Hulu bros.
I have bros. Thank u bros.
I’m not s0 bored.
I’m ur facebook friend/fan/bro
I’m on ur buddy list.
You’ll nvr b alone again.
We’re not s0 bored.
We have HRO/nyt/the Page/The Wilson Quarterly
We have mp3s/myspace/youtube/hypemachine.
We have iPhone/gPhone/bPhone/pPhone.
We have lolspeak.
We’re not s0 bored.
We have happy house.
Thank you for being so damn excellent.
Sometimes I wonder what life was like b4 HRO/electricity/agriculture.
I wonder if everyday was like a Nappy Dynamite. Slow, awkward, listening to campy midi tracks.
Maybe ppl were s0 bored.
Maybe Wavves should download the Internet.
//////////Reply by tripler
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
the silvertells: funnier than carles in 2k10 (via ’starting his own blog’)
//////////Reply by dev
//////////Posted April 5th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
@Doinmusic,
thumbs down, they just sound like a bad version of japanther…..
Reply
//////////Reply by quoi de fuck
//////////Posted August 20th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
@dev,
nuthin alike, brudda–but i do like them both.
i give WAVVES some thumbs up,
a) good musix
b) because they don’t give two shits if i give them any thumbs up at all. i like that. i think.
Reply
ya i ‘get’ you
Reply
//////////Reply by fuck you2
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 9:59 pm
@Anon, fail, fuckyou2oo
Reply
you’re dumb. your blog is stupid. i hate this stupid fucking labeling thing. some of the shit you say is funny, but you should stop grouping things together and making ridiculous generalizations. i realize you’re just a troll, but it pisses me off, “bro”. i am younger than the supposed demographic that you have made up for people that enjoy this band, much younger. but what the fuck? it’s a dude with a guitar and an 8-track making some tunes. there is no fucking specific demographic of listeners he is trying to target, because he’s not targeting anybody. please fuck off with this hipster bullshit. keep listening to mgmt and stay away from the good music! thanks..
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK YOU
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:02 pm
@infinityface, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU=CK
p.s. carles is a ’satire bro’ you daft fggt
Reply
//////////Reply by infinityface
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
@FUCK YOU,
fuck this internet trolling shit.
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK sxsw
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:08 pm
@KIDA, *FACEPALM*
//////////Reply by h8rbro
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 pm
@infinityface, do you have an older brother you are trying to impress with your mature musical listenings?… there are manifest functions of an action and latent functions of an action… just cuz they didnt set out to target a certain demographic doesn’t mean that it is what is the situtation.
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
@infinityface,
TROLLING FITS INTO THE ‘LATENT FUNCTION’
//////////Reply by jammers
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 11:14 pm
@infinityface,
if this is so stupid, then why do you waste your time reading it, much less commenting on it?
Reply
//////////Reply by Lee
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm
@jammers,
oooohhhh good one!
u r lame
Reply
//////////Reply by dickspam
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 2:12 am
@infinityface,
dude u totz dont get it do u? ENTRY LEVEL BRO NEEDZHELP
Reply
//////////Reply by anon
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 4:53 am
@infinityface,
this poor shmuck
Reply
//////////Reply by anon
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 4:53 am
just wrote a bunch of stuff for no reason
Reply
//////////Reply by br0ofallbr0s
//////////Posted March 26th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
@anon, exactly whut this blog iz.
//////////Reply by bzooty
//////////Posted April 14th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
@infinityface,
you must be wavves
Reply
//////////Reply by nicole
//////////Posted October 17th, 2009 at 6:20 am
@infinityface, just chill out sweetie, don’t take it personally x..
Reply
why didnt we hang at southby?
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK sxsw
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:04 pm
@BENJY, EAT SOME ‘ADOBE SLABS’ WITH YOUR ‘FAUXBROS’
Reply
FUCK ME I HAVE A COCK IN MY ASS
Reply
//////////Reply by A$TRO
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:03 pm
@fuck you2, f1rst
Reply
//////////Reply by alternativeprincess
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 5:13 am
@fuck you2,
but how? u already have *cock* in ur ass…
Reply
thumbs up!
i enjoy the wavves bro, jay retard and the vivan babez. theyre brand of rock makes me nostalgic of a time before i was relevant/authentic/alive.
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK sxsw
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:05 pm
@relevantspace, TOM WAITS > WAVVES, PSSSH REAL ‘AUTHENTICITY’ IS FAKING YOUR HOMELESSNESS
Reply
Finally a post worth blogging about.
I think you already answered all your questions Carles. Yes, the Gen-X/Vice reading/authenti-cunts love WAVVES. Yes, WAVVES is way over-hyped. Yes, his music is kinda cool in a understated ‘lookbook photos that could be from the 70’s’ kinda way. But just cause it’s over-hyped doesn’t mean you need to like it, or even ‘understand’ it.
Searching for meaning has become the new meaning. Embrace it.
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:10 pm
@AltHombre,
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Reply
//////////Reply by AltHombre
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:14 pm
@FUCK,
T.S. can suck my balls. Maybe soon we’ll have a resurgence of the authenti-poets and we won’t have to try to figure out whether or not we like lo-fi anymore and can just get ‘jizzed’ on a couch somewhere nice.
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:19 pm
@AltHombre,
Dear gOD,
Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking…
aMEN
//////////Reply by AltHombre
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
@Fuck,
Couldn’t reply to your message below, so I’ll just say it here. I knew you were an authenti-cunt all along.
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:25 pm
@AltHombre,
MY CUNT TAKES PRECEDENES OVER YOUR *shrug* ATLAS OF FAGGOTRY. I ‘BATE TO THE MUSIC OF WAVVES
//////////Reply by AltHombre
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 pm
@AltHombre,
Whateva. Go tell Ayn I want my $30 back. I’m starting to think ‘naive-tween’ is far better than ‘authenticunt’. I don’t care anyway. We’re just two bros searching for meanign after-all.
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 pm
@AltHombre,
you really hit the heart with that last re:. *brohugandchestrub* homoeroticism our only chance at understanding our “lives”
//////////Reply by AltHombre
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
@FUCK,
Just trying to preserve the bro race.
//////////Reply by tripler
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 pm
@AltHombre, hey bros cool converdsation can i join
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
@Tripler
1. quote t.s. lewis/c.s. elliot
2. report back
Reply
//////////Reply by tripler
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 11:54 pm
@FUCK, “we’re nuthin more than fools n whores through the summer sand we’re livin in, livin in a wasteland” (via ts elliot featuring augustana)
Reply
thumbs up for wavves. makes me re-experience the sensation of being a “born br0″ swimmin down the canal my ears didnt work all the way yet but i could get vague impulses of what the “real world” must be like. kind of like that in terms of “hearing” the wavves.
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:11 pm
@bubbloy, GET OFF YOU’RE ELBO.WS, YOU’RE BLOWING MY COVER
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 24th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
@bubbloy, this whole thread is GOLD.
Reply
damn
honestly feel like giving someone a blow job while crying a lot when i listen to this song
Reply
//////////Reply by trying2findmyself
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
@tao, im here 4 u bby
Reply
//////////Reply by SilverTell
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
@tao, <3 u tao
Reply
h8 u for blogging about my fave band, now it’s no longer “authentic” 2 listen 2 wavves
Reply
//////////Reply by URGH
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
@s0 anonymous,
he did the same thing with grouper
;_;
Reply
//////////Reply by h8rbro
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 pm
@s0 anonymous, you’re an idiot
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 24th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
@s0 anonymous, Maybe not but you can still be the douche who knew about them before anyone else.
Reply
“They” like it because it sounds like the Pixies pushed through a fuzzbox. I like it, and, yes, I’m in the demographic you mentioned. However, it’s not as generational as you think. If the WAVVES are the next big thing, it will be because of kids who were born long after the Pixies split. Noisy rock music is perennial, man. But don’t worry. When I was a young dude like you, I hated MBV and Dinosaur Jr. (though, I have to admit, I did like The Jesus and Mary Chain). Over time, I came around, and you may someday, too.
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:43 pm
@bramble,
i don’t listen to NMH because of bros like you. What kind of “24-48″ bro has the audacity to lurk HRO and spout shit about his ‘taste’ in ‘indie’ ‘fathers’. fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
Reply
//////////Reply by AltHombre
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Love you bros. Make me smile.
Reply
//////////Reply by AltHombre
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 5:57 am
@bramble,
NMH = Neutral Milk Hotel. Thought you were more authents than that.
//////////Reply by bramble
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 11:29 pm
@FUCK, speak english, sonny boy. What are you posting from your iphone with your dick? The leet is only funny when the jerk who writes this blog does it, and actually it is not funny even then. What is NMH? I have no idea what you are trying to communicate. That you’ve somehow sidestepped history? That your consumer experiences are somehow more magical than those of every other Wal-Mart shopper? I’ll be kind and point you in the right direction:
http://www.hermenaut.com/a5.shtml
Reply
//////////Reply by spandecks
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 am
@bramble, authentic*
//////////Reply by anon
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 4:57 am
@bramble, lol dont stop posting
//////////Reply by bbbbb
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 5:55 am
@bramble, keep preachin bramble, maybe you’ll dig all the way to china
//////////Reply by SilverTell
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
@bramble,
FEATURE | Joshua Glenn | 12/22/0 | 15: Fake Authenticity
Fake Authenticity: An Introduction
“We have a hunger for something like authenticity, but are easily satisfied by an ersatz facsimile.”-George Orwell, c. 1949
“You have to appreciate authenticity in all its forms.”-advertisement for Winston cigarettes, 1999
When Orwell complained about people’s misguided enthusiasm for ersatz facsimiles, he was on the one hand referring to something like Bakelite, which was often manufactured to look like something “real” (e.g. wood, or ivory-as in a jewel case, or the handle of a hairbrush), but which was more easily mass-produced and therefore less expensive than an authentic original. But more importantly, he was referring to that desirable mode of existence called, by French and German existentialists around the time he was writing, “authenticity.” In the latter case, he might have been lamenting the fact that middle-class people were seeking “liberation,” or their “true selves,” but were merely getting out of one rut and into another, by settling into a complacent bohemianism, or by seeking “extreme” situations (in which one’s “true self” is supposed to emerge, according to theory) in tourism or sport. One feels for Orwell, who could never have imagined that some day “authenticity” would be used to sell cigarettes with the same name as the victimized protagonist of his 1984-and which simultaneously glorifies and mocks those pitiful few figures (e.g., old men in Bermuda shorts and black socks) whose “style,” because it’s so “white,” have not yet been entirely appropriated and commodified. But whichever type of authenticity Orwell was defending, he was wrong.
The misdirected quest for authenticity is an ugly thing. Will there never be an end to the spectacle of (white, middle-class) people draping themselves in exotic fabrics, bribing sherpas to haul them up mountains, spending $15 for turkey-burgers in urban hunting lodges, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over macaroni paintings by schizophrenics, throwing out perfectly good old kitchen tables for new tables into which fist-sized holes have been carefully drilled, and-of course-emulating or at least fetishizing people darker and/or poorer than themselves [see "The Green Hills of Elsewhere" by Thomas Frank, this issue]? We believe that all of the above, and more, can be usefully summed up under one phrase: “fake authenticity.”
Coined by Hermenaut’s hard-working Critical Affairs Department, fake authenticity is that which is false, in the sense of “counterfeited.” Need an adjective to describe bars and restaurants with “authentic” themes (usually: ethnic, historical, or outdoorsy); or expensive new items of clothing or furniture which have been “distressed,” “weathered,” “stone-washed,” and otherwise pre-aged for the purpose of looking like it’s been used or worn, for years and years, by someone who works on a farm/with his or her hands; or urban hipsters who adopt or otherwise excessively admire what they imagine to be the non-white (or ethnic white), urban/rural (i.e. non-suburban), working class, and “outsider”-in-general style of life; or anything and everything “re-enacted,” “authentically reproduced,” and Disneyfied in general? Try: “fake-authentic.”
It’s important, however, to distinguish between the “fake” (which can mean “insufficiently authentic,” but which usually just means “fake”) and the “fake-authentic.” Returning to the language of our “Camp/Kitsch” issue, whereas the “fake” is simply kitsch, which can be transformed by the lovingly ironic person into camp, the “fake-authentic” is nothing but cheese. Let’s use, as an example, one of those restaurants which try too hard to seem “Italian”-by hanging overly sentimental postcards of Rome all over the place, or something. This may not be your idea of authentic-shouldn’t the theme to The Godfather be playing in here?-but so what? As writer Al (Thrift SCORE!) Hoff asks: Is the food good, or not? The insufficiently “Italian” restaurant is harmless kitsch, and it likely offers beautifully weird rewards to anyone with eyes to see them [see my "Interview with Daniel Clowes," and "Our Night on Mars" by Daniel Brantley and Pauline Wolstencroft, this issue]. There is nothing you or I can do about the bad taste of people who can’t distinguish between fake and authentic, people who wear imitation leather jackets and “Kiss Me I’m Irish” T-shirts like they mean it… but again, so what? Which is really worse: honestly enjoying the whitebread stylings of Pat Boone, or just pretending to enjoy cheesy Cocktail Nation send-ups of whitebread [see "Comoerotic" by Joseph Lanza, this issue]? Irony, the engaged kind of irony which does not preclude real emotion, nor even seriousness, is still possible in a world of fakeness; but in a world where fake authenticity has triumphed, nothing remains but sincerity on the one hand, and a glib, mocking version of irony-cheese-on the other.
Sentimentality is one of the problems, sure, but only if we can’t replace it with real emotion [see "The Mint Condition" by Matthew De Abaitua, "Onward Christian Tourists" by Mary E. Ladd and Julie Wiskirchen]. The Olive Garden, for instance, which is one of these places where you’re “treated like family” and the portions are too enormous to be believed, is not the answer to Italian-restaurant kitsch. It’s worse: It replaces the (cheap, degraded) emotion of the ersatz facsimile with the cold calculation of the simulacrum, the replica which has replaced that which it was only supposed to replicate. The fake, as Baudrillard has said for years, is charming; the simulacrum is not.
This is why cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas are no longer as awful to us, today, as they did to progressive types forty years ago. A culture of fakeness has actually inoculated these places against fake authenticity (though not for much longer, surely) [see "Letter from LA" by Dan Reines, and "Club 9, Pioneertown" by Marilyn Berlin Snell, this issue]. But here in Boston, a city which prides itself on its authenticity, fake authenticity has long since won the day. Through a process which America’s favorite columnist Slotcar Hatebath (misappropriating the term from the museum world) calls “authentication,” everything here in the Hub of the Universe which was actually old has been made Olde instead; historical façades and interiors have been restored not to how they used to look, but to how (city planners imagine) tourists want them to look; every incident of (family-friendly) historical importance which has ever transpired within city limits is now re-enacted in an entirely Disneyfied manner [see "Bar? None" by Slotcar Hatebath, this issue].
Even the 19th century brewery building (now owned by the company which invented Samuel Adams beer, itself an excellent example of fake authenticity) in which this publication is headquartered trembles on the verge of authentication. No doubt we will soon be forced out, to make way for fake-authenticity-seeking suburbanites who want “artist condos” in an historical building where someone else’s ancestors once roasted hops. (Luckily, we have a money-making scheme in the works. All I can say right now is: Pre-Off-Roaded SUVs. Beaten with chains and tumbled around in a gigantic clothes dryer. Beep me, babe, I’ll fedex you the prospectus.) Boston is not a “museum,” as hipness-deprived college students, transplanted New Yorkers, and ex-suburbanites complain-because museums are supposed to preserve the past. Instead, this city has become a simulacrum of itself, a gift shop(pe) writ large [see "Pilgrim's Progress" by Jessica Hundley, and "Memories of the Biosphere" by Margaret Blonder, this issue].
This is not to say that there is something authentic about Boston, which must be allowed to speak for itself as opposed to through the interpretations of historians. But, as Clarke Cooper notes in “Debasement by Acclaim” [this issue], it’s one thing for an individual (a historian, here) to express his or her unique and inspired vision of reality, but it’s another thing for the culture, whose place and ability it is to generate the consensus that makes communication among us possible, to try to do the same thing. An historian’s interpretation of Boston is a work of artifice and imagination, it’s a fake–but this does not preclude it from being an authentic representation of the city. But when that sphere of society whose role it is to enforce inherited forms and norms gets into the action, the result is always an example of fake authenticity.
A note, here, about Disneyland. There was something attractively naïve about that amusement park’s recently-demolished “Tomorrowland” exhibit, because although Disney’s Wernher von Braun- and science fiction-inspired world of monorails, rocket ships, and homo sapiens extra-terrestrialis began as a fake-authentic vision of the future, the passage of time has revealed it to be nothing more noxious than a fake [see "That Darn Drunk!" by Todd Levin, this issue]. Tomorrowland has been replaced, however, by a more “realistic” vision of the future, one in which rich executives (whoops, I mean “we”) won’t get to wear anti-gravity shoes, but in which we will instead telecommute from bucolic farmhouses and fly-fishing streams. Fake authenticity, in this example, is so little removed from life that it makes reality itself inauthentic. Which is part of the problem.
“No authentic human life is possible without irony”-Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony (1840)
So, is there any such thing as authenticity? No, there isn’t. To Baudrillard, whenever “authenticity” is evoked, we are already in the world of the fake. Hermenaut suggests the following update: Whenever “authenticity” is evoked, we are actually in the world of fake authenticity. Although Italians do open restaurants, there is no such thing as an authentic Italian restaurant. Although history, nature, race, and class are very real and very much with us, there is no such thing as an authentic past, an authentic outdoors, nor an authentic non-white/middle-class style of life. News flash: Poor urban blacks do exist when they’re not being featured on America’s Funniest Race Riots, but there is no item of clothing, no compact disc, and no affected manner of walking or talking which will allow anyone who is not poor, urban, or black to approximate that. “Authenticity” is a reality-label from the art world, and as such it cannot be fixed to anything living and vital. For that matter, it’s even difficult to describe a piece of art as “authentic” in the sense of “not fake” [see "Saved By Betrayal" by Chris Fujiwara, and "Marlo's Meiji Masterpiece" by Venus de Malachite, this issue].
Art, as we all know, is “something everyone can do”; “we are all creative,” we’re told, and apparently the more middle-aged and career-damaged we are, the better. What everybody cannot do, however, is brilliantly express a singular vision of reality. Art made by the kind of artist who can do this is often derided-particularly when he or she works without sufficient resources, or in a despised medium (science fiction, comics)-by audiences brainwashed by the smooth, shining surfaces of capitalist realism, as “fake” [see "The Will to Scorn" by Clarke Cooper]. But, as I’ve said, “fakeness” isn’t a bad thing. In fact, as long as we include “fakeness” within our definition, we can still apply the term “authenticity” profitably to all manner of phenomena-because not only is the fake often as authentic as that which it imitates, it can be more so. It’s possible for young Japanese rock musicians inspired by the Cramps, or even the soundtrack to Grease, to play a wildly twisted version of rockabilly with passion and originality. How is this not authentic rockabilly? That it’s in no way “authentic” in a manner which the world of fake authenticity would recognize is a plus, not a minus. The phenomenon of “jiggers,” however-Japanese teens who darken their skin with UV rays and generally make idiots of themselves-is a fake-authentic thang.
At the risk of sounding foolish, because of course the terms “art” and “creativity” have been enormously devalued in recent years, it’s important to talk about them here-because all great thinkers on the subject of existential authenticity use the artist as their paradigmatic example. Breaking with the Platonic/scientific tradition of “discovering” pre-existing meaning, objective reality, transcendent values, and the true self, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus-to name only those philosophers discussed in In Search of Authenticity (Routledge, 1995), Jacob Golomb’s excellent history of existential authenticity-choose to make these things themselves. When the 22-year-old Kierkegaard wrote, in 1835, “The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live or die,” this was no exercise prescribed by The Artist’s Way. Instead of looking inward, hacking his way romantically through the underbrush of convention and habit to “the source of [his] self,” or however it’s usually put, he was creative; he artistically engaged with a social world he found constraining and immoral [see "Minnie Minnola's Story" by Ingrid Schorr, this issue]. When Nietzsche wrote that the world is composed not of questions with answers, but of “infinite interpretations,” this was not a resigned statement of relativistic nihilism, but a challenge to each of us: to boldly interpret where no one has interpreted before; to create not truth, but truthfulness, where none would otherwise exist; to be, for lack of a better word, an artist.
Before being an artist, however, the would-be anti-hero (anti-, because whereas a “hero” perfectly embodies society’s prevailing ethos, the person seeking existential authenticity rejects every ethos in favor of his or her own subjective pathos) of this type of authenticity must become an ironist. By “irony” I in no way mean to refer to that hip, sarcastic glibness which passes for irony at the moment, and which is nothing but the flip side of a hip earnestness which, being in no way less glib, is even more outrageous. Kierkegaard, a master ironist, warned against an overly-corrosive irony in his essay The Concept of Irony, noting that Socrates was “overwhelmed by irony; he became dizzy, and everything lost its reality” [see my "Dr. Extaticus, Master of Irony," issue #11/12]. So precisely because our kind of ironist is someone-and here I use Richard Rorty’s definition, from Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge, 1989)-who faces up to the historical contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires, and recognizes that these beliefs and desires don’t refer back to anything transcendent (beyond the reach of time and chance), he or she is also someone who’d never buy into that cynical legitimization of the status quo which today goes by the name of irony.
To the anti-hero of authenticity, Golomb suggests, irony -which facilitates the emergence of authenticity by helping us become detached from those things we take for granted-is paradoxically “the voice of commitment and caring, the optimistic call to innovation and formation, rebirth and transformation.” Like empathy, creative interpretation only becomes possible when we’ve de-centered ourselves, and learned to see (and hear) the world with new eyes (and ears). An ironic appreciation of the fake can help, here [see "The Trouble With Trekkers" by Greg Rowland, and "The Phenomenology of Reverb" by David Rothenberg, this issue]. In Sincerity and Authenticity (Harvard, 1971), Lionel Trilling describes an irony of simultaneous commitment and detachment, a “patrician posture” which he says “cannot fail to outrage the egalitarian hedonism of the educated middle classes.” That’s the kind of irony I’m talking about. The sincere do-gooder and the earnest moralist, as former Hermenauts of the Month Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde knew all too well, judge everyone by received criteria of behavior, criteria which are what Rorty calls “inherited contingencies.” It is up to the (anti-)heroically “insincere” person (in Wilde’s terminology) to judge without being judgmental, and to behave morally without being moralistic.
“It doesn’t matter what the jargon [of authenticity] says, so long as it is spoken in a voice that resonates properly.”-T.W. Adorno, The Jargon of Authenticity (1964)
This is an excerpt.
Existential “authenticity,” then, could be defined as something like “that mode of existence in which one becomes ironically and radically suspicious of all received forms and norms, and in which one strives to lucidly affirm and creatively live the tension of human reality in all its contingency, ambiguity, and absurdity.” Fake authenticity, in this context, means something like “an overly subjective, anti-bourgeois rebelliousness in which the cause of social and political revolution is furthered by wearing pre-frayed Dockers, driving a luxury version of a rancher’s utility vehicle, and maintaining a sarcastically vague and noncommittal suspicion of bourgeois society.” This mode of fake authenticity is all around us, every day, typically expressed in what Theodor Adorno called, in The Jargon of Authenticity (1964; translated for Northwestern U. Press, 1973), “the jargon of authenticity”: a nonsense-language that seems to express (in a resonant voice) a need for meaning and liberation, but which only serves to mystify and oppress.
2manywords
//////////Reply by SilverTell
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 4:50 pm
@bramble, omg s0 sorry yall
totes didn’t paste that much.
wtf text field!
Behavior yourself!
This is an excerpt.
I tried for Existential “authenticity,” then, could be defined as something like “that mode of existence in which one becomes ironically and radically suspicious of all received forms and norms, and in which one strives to lucidly affirm and creatively live the tension of human reality in all its contingency, ambiguity, and absurdity.” Fake authenticity, in this context, means something like “an overly subjective, anti-bourgeois rebelliousness in which the cause of social and political revolution is furthered by wearing pre-frayed Dockers, driving a luxury version of a rancher’s utility vehicle, and maintaining a sarcastically vague and noncommittal suspicion of bourgeois society.” This mode of fake authenticity is all around us, every day, typically expressed in what Theodor Adorno called, in The Jargon of Authenticity (1964; translated for Northwestern U. Press, 1973), “the jargon of authenticity”: a nonsense-language that seems to express (in a resonant voice) a need for meaning and liberation, but which only serves to mystify and oppress.
2manywords
//////////Reply by bramble
//////////Posted March 24th, 2009 at 12:30 am
@AltHombre, thanks for the heads up.
Sorry fuck for depriving you of NMH. I know castration fear is no fun. I empathize, but someday you’re going to have to identify with the Father(s) if you ever hope to sublimate your destructive Oedipal complex. You tell all your friends you have no desire to “fit in,” but we both know better than that, don’t we?
Can anybody tell I work in mental health?
Did anybody like the essay I linked?
I’m not sure it says what I wanted to say. It’s just that I’ve noticed that some altbros and altgals exhibit something I’d call studied sincerity. Conflict and ambivalence, at least within the context of their own outlook on the world, is verboten. Everything with them is either thumbs-up or thumbs-down. They have a horror of irony. Their mentality seems to be forever that of a fifth-grader. When I was a fifth-grader, all I cared about were Star Wars action figures and what was on TV that evening. Nothing going on in the adult world mattered to me. It’s like that with the altbros and altgirls, but they have a wider array of cultural artifacts to play with.
My first instinct is to judge studied sincerity negatively, but of course I can’t claim that the people I grew up with dealt with the world any better than the altbros and altgals.
Anyway, this itinerant preacher is moving on. Pass the plate.
//////////Reply by Joooooooe
//////////Posted March 25th, 2009 at 10:20 am
@bramble, tl;dr
FINALLY!!!!! I thought I was going fucking craYzy.wavvvvvvvvves is the worst SHIT I’ve ever heard.his uncle is president of universal records.hheh.probs.only way this could happen
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:38 pm
@sd h8tr,
right…
and my uncle is president of the ‘universe’
Reply
//////////Reply by hahaha
//////////Posted July 9th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
@sd h8tr,
Ur just mad cuz yer band is SHITE and no1 in SD goes to see u.
Reply
this shit sux, nobody will care about this bro in a year. mark my words.
suxxxx yo
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 10:37 pm
@sux, are you using ’sux’ in the classical sense?
Reply
this blogger probably never played an instrument in his life and judges another band like he’s rolling stones magazine (another horrible website that employee workers who have no musical taste)
let the rage ensue….
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 8:32 am
@FailBlogisFail, I like their journalism.
Reply
//////////Reply by ...
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
@FailBlogisFail, ur so ghey
Reply
1. obvious tween is obvious
2. credit where due, rolling stones does not have ‘no’ musical taste, but a ’shit’ musical taste
3. your comment did not mention wavves, so turn ‘mangum’ on onself and end onself’s life
4. there is no four, you’re dead
Reply
lame, that is all
Reply
maybe CRLS is getting old on us… he’s talking abt ‘bloghaus’ when every1 is now supposed 2 listen 2 beachpunkshoegazecore. Vivian Girls r the new Justices yall.
we need a post-bloghaus HRO that accept the new memesthetic of internet-based alternative music. h8 u crls 4 being like an oldperson.
Reply
//////////Reply by anonymous
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 9:15 am
@Gurkman, a nu-conceptual-core HRO?[via the dave longstreths]
Reply
jeff mangum is my dad
Reply
//////////Reply by Lux
//////////Posted March 22nd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
@Zakawee,
OMG so jealous
Anyways, I like “So Bored”
Reply
Wavves seems to be influenced by earlier punk than No Age. No Age appeals to me way more. (I’m 20). (This fits with your idea of who should like what/when/why/how).
“Feel free to sample 8 seconds of this [No Age] song before turning it off.”
A lot of what’s good about No Age isn’t necessarily noticeable on initial-listening(s). You look like a big dummy to people that know this.
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 8:33 am
@chorles, oh boy… if I had a buck everytime someone said this… the sad thing is that I even say it myself.
Reply
1.3 out of 10? lol
Reply
thumbs down. (though i wouldn’t want to dissuade anyone from checking him out; like- although it doesn’t appeal to me, it seems like it has the potential to for someone else.)
i had just been listening to him a few days ago via: http://nylonmag.com/nylonblogs/blog/2009/03/17/hear-me-now-wavves/; and somehow your literary skillz managed to sum up my exact feelings towards his music/type of music.
I’ll 4evr hold these words close to my heart— I think these people appeal to the ‘alternative post-GenXers who grew up reading Vice Magazine.’
so good.
Reply
too much carlesjargon to even make this post legitimately readable…sometimes skimming through…and all i really get from it is a bro desperately trying to stuff his mainbrainbrand down my throat….kind of takes a lot of the humor out of it….
note to carleton: try not to punctuate your blog posts with such a “smorgasbord” of carles lingo/meme jabber/and intellispeak…and just might branch out to that “wider audience” yr yearning for.
sometimes think, relatively hpster speaking, that carles only listens to “safe music/aka/dmb for the am appy consumer;” and doesn’t really “understand” music outside the “ANCO rx prescribed box.”
Reply
//////////Reply by Mia
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 4:51 am
@michael, I’m betting it took you at best an hour to come up with what you seem to have deemed a clever and wittily opinionated response.
glad to see that even though you say you can’t handle the ‘carlesjargon’, you still read hro anyway.
Reply
//////////Reply by bbbbb
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 am
@michael, u kind of undercut urself when u admit u can’t read, bro
Reply
couldn’t get into this
all i owe anyone is an honest listen
Reply
well this is how real alt music is supposed to sound.
i guess none of u is authentic :-(
Reply
“Still trying to ‘get’ these alts since I have had to alienate them to appeal to tweens (a more valuable demographic for advertisers).”
I love HRO!
Reply
I’m sick of music blogs…I’m sick of blogs… except this one which I don’t even read that often. I’m convinced it’s just a big echo chamber for “taste makers” and doesn’t reflect what people are really listening to. Speaking of which wasn’t MPP supposed to be certified platinum by march already? My world is crushed!
Reply
Next big act: The Depeches.
Reply
I am alt post xer grew up reading vice don’t like this either, but his voice kinda sounds like the pandas, so maybe i should like it
Reply
Wavves was good at the g vs b party. I thought Here We Go Magic was the bomb, though. Girls and Golden Filter were both pretty ill too. I thought g vs b threw a nice little party. When is Hipster Runoff gonna host a party at SXSW?
Damon
Reply
i understand your apprehension carles, but i say thumbs up. wavves, though kind of hard to ‘feel’ sometimes, writes some great pop songs and beach anthems, washed out in fuzz/contempt/intent. this parallels my life, and the beauty i experience while living in washed out suburban wastelands surrounded by ads and cars and pavement and not waves at all. i’m s00 bored, and nathan/wavves knows how fucking much it sucks. that is why my thumbs are up
Reply
//////////Reply by SilverTell
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 pm
@M, bro i feel u
i was bored once
then i downloaded the Internet
It came with every song ever
except for times when u really need a song and it’s no where 2 b found (that means that u’ve ventured off the beaten blog path).
It came with clothes from
Berlin &
Billyburg
Helsinki &
Harajuku
Paris &
Prague.
I bought them [via PayPal.]
It came with Last Night’s Party pix.
It came with meaningful books from meaningful authors
Huxley
Hunter S.
Kerouac
Palahniuk
It came with every book ever.
It came with every magazine.
It came with every movie.
It came with Pen Pals
It came with “digital love.” Daft bros
“What else is there?” – The Royksopps
Reply
//////////Reply by h8rbro
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
@SilverTell,
yes, there is no excuse not to know…
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 25th, 2009 at 12:48 am
@SilverTell, “….except for times when u really need a song and it’s no where 2 b found”
priceless.
Reply
who carez about hype. wavves is fun music. even for 20 yr old females like me.
Reply
i <3 wavves and i’m just a tween
didn’t know there was so much hype for wavves
sometimes the distortion gets old
but it’s grood
Reply
//////////Reply by ...
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 10:55 am
@…, plus nathan is totes a QT
Reply
//////////Reply by duh
//////////Posted March 26th, 2009 at 3:14 am
@…, agreed he is adorable.
Reply
Feel kinda out of touch with Carles. Might start watching Fight Club again. Life Sux.
Reply
//////////Reply by ...
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
@Blipster Runoff, gonna put on my linkin park cd
Reply
i like it, but then again i am 27 1/2 yrs old
Reply
gotta roll with crls here;
funny to see bros get their broxers in a knot over what a blogger on the internet says like it’s going to end it all. it’s a dude making some music thru an 8track and some boss pedals. chill out bros. yeah it appeals to nostalgia and it’s upbeat. dig hard enuf and yr gonna find gems that eclipse this bro. just sayin. gonna go listen to some thompson twins cuz they can hold me now.
Reply
h8 wavves [via pixies] a comment about a blog post.
pretty solid point crls – 28 -42 age demographic is eating this shit up like it were mustard. sorta h8 how it doesn’t even pretend to appeal to youth culture / b relevant. sorta think it has to do w/ distortion – overarching memeview of the world that is something you can’t “quite get” something that “will break you” something that is “sorta depressing /hard to understand”.
Just want 2 experience the world in a sincere authentic context. Just want to say “i’m loving it”. H8 when older musiccritics try to use sarcasm/irony. Sorta think that is why i can’t relate to this wavves stuff. wavves bro looks like lost in surburbia bro.
Reply
//////////Reply by SilverTell
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
@h8 Wavves via pixies, lol
Phoenix is to Lost in Translation what
Wavves is to Lost in Suburbia.
Actually Lost in Translation was chock full of fuzz.
“Just like Honey”?
Maybe distortion just expresses the emotion of being trapped and/or confused and/or bored.
Maybe Wavves was sent from the conceptual forest to play a boring song about the boring musical technique of distortion.
Maybe Wavves has been playing Tony Hawk N64 too long.
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 25th, 2009 at 12:54 am
@SilverTell, In many ways art is an expression of the media you have to work with but I find it hard to believe that an old answering machine was the ONLY thing they could find to record on.
Reply
Is this Weezer?
Reply
//////////Reply by Sandra
//////////Posted March 23rd, 2009 at 1:34 pm
@Sandra, sorry, i mean is this The Weezers?
Reply
Highly Buzzworthy = Inaccessable
the more accessable a band becomes now the shittier they are.
fall out boy electronic rotating lollipops in some aisle (i know they were always shitty)
The proliferation of coolness and its accessability, or ability to poser has created the inaccessible to be the newcool.
Big in 2k10 – backwoods moonshine jug bands and reclusive blues singers living somewhere along appalachia. scene – Scores of hipsters walking into the woods with their untuned banjoes and xxx jugs heading off to be the next big thing. they will run into hippies already “being” in the woods and procreate a clone army of devendras, ryan adamses (only ’cause his carolinian twang), etc. We’ll have our own guerilla armies scattered throughout the mountainous regions kidnapping sparks truck drivers (cb radios will be the new iPhones. iBreaker-Breaker 10 – 4
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 25th, 2009 at 12:56 am
@bantastic, It’s gonna be totally authentic.
Reply
blink 182 cames out of SD (san diego)and wavves did too coincidence????
Reply
<3
Reply
More zany lifestyle brands less long posts
Reply
didn’t really like the song. some parts were ok. like no age better
Reply
//////////Reply by FUCK
//////////Posted March 24th, 2009 at 1:27 am
@c, You lost me at “hello”. Please repost with proper capitalization, punctuation, and tion. A pronoun would be nice also. Does Obamme not like wavvves, or is it Kevin Bacon who likes No Age. Just some help from bro to bro,
Reply
//////////Reply by cee pee
//////////Posted March 24th, 2009 at 8:16 am
@FUCK, i vote this funniest retort of the comments page
Reply
this is the new alt, bro. get used to it for 2k9.
less parties, more introspection.
dunno if the mainstream will ever be ready for lo-fi. i hope i don’t live to see that day.
my love for noise rock is what will keep me forever authentic.
Reply
//////////Reply by до свидания
//////////Posted March 24th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
@anofk, u can b introspective @ parties.
Reply
//////////Reply by anony
//////////Posted March 25th, 2009 at 12:59 am
@anofk, WTF is noise rock? What I mean is if you had to describe it would you be able to?
Reply
//////////Reply by anofk
//////////Posted March 25th, 2009 at 2:00 am
@anony, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_rock
Reply
Recording to 8-track = Failed attempt at fake-fake authenticity.
Reply
sucks cuz they don’t have so bored available for download on frostwire
Reply
FUCK YEH SOUNDZ LIKE PIXIES!
Reply
i mean, your analysis is totally untrue. you’re an electro bro, therefore you are completely unaware of the all-ages DIY scene alive and well in brooklyn and LA. kids love this stuff, the concerts are awesome, it’s fun to listen to and it’s good. it’s not amazing, but yeah it’s 90s punk so the old people rate it well, but it’s not like ~beyond~ young people. are you the missing generation? too young to understand the 90s lo-fi sound~ and too old to actively participate in the current DIY scene. making you approx 24 years old.
Reply
Wavves kills you know nothing
Reply
get higher, then listen again!
Reply
he pisses me off. i saw him live at this house he was a complete asshole witch doesn’t bother me much but he sucked so much live (he played his songs wrong, he couldn’t sing his songs, and his songs weren’t a bit fuzzy witch upset me quite a bit.) that it was just making him look bad. then he just put his guitar down and ran out like a little kid or something.
OH. he records on garage band. he adds the fuzz into his music. witch is unexceptable, seeing so he cant get his own sound live.
Reply
wavves and no age are fast LOUD distorted rock at its best, MGMT is a electrodancepopfunksillyrockduo that try to achieve a psuedo mystic persona while coming off more as a joke
If you parents listened to velvet underground: wavves
If your parents listened to queen or air supply:mgmt
if you could see no age play live next to mgmt you would know what i mean
Reply
//////////Reply by don't worry about it
//////////Posted July 28th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
@juan carlos,
worrrrdddddd
Reply
Wavves is for the people who are sick of the overproduced ridiculous dance pop bands like of montreal, daft punk, and mgmt
its for people who drink 40’s not appletinis
its for people who smoke weed, not capri rettes
its for people who play guitar, not synthesizer
its for people who listen to dead boys, not pet shop boys
its for people who skate, not rollerblade
its for people who watch 28 days later, not 28 days
its for people who have a black website, not a pink one
Reply
i don’t give a fuck about wavves.
quit making posts about music
Reply
haha. i love you
Reply
At every corner of the internet, the same idiots crop up and irritate me.
The internet is the future and the future is bleak.
wavves is mediocre, btw
Reply
Everything you do, say and write are so pathetic. Go and listen to your stupid remixes of song that are bland and mgmt.
I won’t come to your blog anymore because it’s so fucking stupid and I just can’t fucking stand you and your attitude towards music.
Reply